When you think of the words “high-profile tech event”, chances are you have a pretty clear idea of what that might look like. Glitzy product announcements, probably; warehouse-tall HD screens presenting groundbreaking pieces of technology or paradigm-shifting ways to communicate. On the less hyperbolic end of the scale, you might assume that most attendees would be fully clothed.

That’s not always the case, however, as the debacle that was the Digital Entrepreneur Awards (DEA) neatly illustrates. No high-tech displays or feats of ingenuity here: instead, guests were greeted by corset-wearing showgirls and regaled with offensive jokes from Love Island voiceover star Iain Stirling. Apple keynote this was not.

A team from the University of Bradford has even handed back the prize it was awarded for most innovative use of video. The director of external affairs at the university, Mark Garratt, told the Times that attending the event was like “going back to the days of Bernard Manning”. Digital comms agency Lab – DEA’s agency of the year – described the event as “like seeing toxic waste being dumped on a beautiful beach”.

The reputation the tech industry has for being dominated by “bros” hasn’t come out of nowhere

A friend of mine was also there. “The show basically revolved around ‘jokes’ about wives giving blowjobs to their husbands,” she told me. “They had an opportunity to challenge the stereotypes of working in tech and they failed. They failed massively.”

After an extensive social media backlash, the organisers were forced to agree: “Our aim was to celebrate tech and never to undermine the incredible women in the industry or do anything to negate the work everyone in the industry is doing to promote equality and redress the balance,” they wrote in an apologetic blogpost.

Bad-taste, misogynistic jokes at a minor awards ceremony are, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly trivial thing. But, forming a small part of a bigger picture as they do, it’s not trivial at all. Yes, sexism sometimes comes in the comparatively harmless form of jokes even Jim Davidson would consider passe. But at other times it manifests as demeaning remarks in the workplace: as sexual harassment, as systemic imbalances of power – all things that women in tech are putting up with on a daily basis, and which are preventing them from getting ahead.

The reputation the tech industry has for being dominated by “bros” hasn’t come out of nowhere. Despite all its lofty talk of innovation, tech is often a hugely unwelcoming place for women – from graduates just starting out to those occupying more senior roles. Ellen Pao, previously interim CEO at Reddit, has written extensively about the sexism she encountered in the world of tech: her new book, Reset, looks at her self-proclaimed “fight for inclusion”. Similarly, earlier this year, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler detailed the sexism that reached the very top of the company, encountering systemic failings from management to HR. These are just the women speaking out: many more remain silent.

When women working in tech are faced with jokes like those told at the DEAs, it’s a slap in the face: a reminder that no matter how hard they work or how seriously they take their careers, they will always be considered second best. So while it might seem to bystanders that a backlash over some misogynistic jokes made at an awards ceremony is yet another storm in a social media teacup, it’s not. The outrage has not been manufactured – it’s genuine, and it’s because women in tech are sick of being treated as if they themselves are a joke.

University team rejects prize because of 'sexist' awards ceremony

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They’re also tired of being told to put up and shut up. Fowler was asked by an HR manager whether she might “be the problem”. My friend attending the DEAs told me she was made to feel “like I was in the wrong for calling it out, like I should have felt privileged to be included in the old boys’ club”. Speaking out is fiercely discouraged, which makes women such as Pao, Fowler or even just anonymous tweeters at badly organised awards ceremonies all the braver.

Obviously, we’re nowhere close to vanquishing the overwhelmingly sexist culture of the tech industry – inequalities are embedded into the very structure of the industry. It’s also worth noting that most of those who feel able to publicly take a stand are privileged already. Whether it’s their white privilege or their financial situation, many of these women have a safety net to fall back on, meaning the voices of some of the most vulnerable women in the industry remain unheard.

But the fact that women are speaking out and fighting back isn’t going to change – which means, sometime soon, the party’s going to be over for the toxic world of the tech bros.